Moving Away from Windows

Ever [since] I tried a Fedora build for programming purposes a few years back, I was interested in this alternate operating system, and the benefits it offered. But once I finished with that project, and had to format my entire hard drive, I just couldn't be bothered to re-partition, and re-install it. Even when I heard about the supposedly easy to use debian fork, it still wasn't worth the effort to set up all my preferences again. But now that my new laptop has arrived (Dell Inspiron 6400, expect a full review soon), I the time was right for a fresh operating system for my fresh laptop. Enter Ubuntu my new best friend.

So far, my first day as an Ubuntu user has been going pretty well. I decided to try to do everything directly from the CD, including partitioning. I know that I'm still going to need windows for a few things, like specialized applications and gaming, so I tried to partition my main Windows drive into 2 partitions. When I tried to create another space for a Swap Space, the partitioning program would not let me do so because of the extra crap that Dell loads down their systems with. From the factory this laptop comes with 3 partitions, one main windows drive, on diagnostics drive, and one restore drive. Combined, these two drives take up more than 4 gigs of space. Dell users that are confident in their abilities not to mess their systems up might want to get rid of these drives, to get that extra bit of space. So because of these extra drives, I currently do not have an extra partition as a swap space, but that's something I might be able to fix later once I'm convinced of the stability of the system. Initially, the install program would not let me chose the new partition to install to, but running the install program again let me select it. Kind of odd, but it all worked out I guess.

Well the honeymoon is almost over, but so far life with linux is still pretty good. Now that I have almost everything working, getting the last few problems worked out is taking a fair bit longer. Right now the only problems I have are with my wireless drivers.